Waiting for Barney

I had my first encounter yesterday with Rita, the Tea Lady From Hell, so I was prepared for some surprises on my breakfast tray. Sure enough, despite having asked for low-fat spread, marmalade and coffee, I ended up with butter, no marmalade and tea. I decided encounter her about it in the corridor. She was fine, really, and said she'd sort things, which she did (though I did have to go out again and help myself to some more packs of sugar). Unfortunately, all this stressed me out and I got all the symptoms of a full-blown attack (breathlessness, tightness across the chest). I told the nurse about it and she took it all quite seriously, hitching me to some oxygen (which felt really funny and made me feel even more like a serious health case).

The caridologist came round and told me I'd 'be out of here within a week'. It's just a question of a surgeon having a slot free. He's only contacted people who have returned from holiday, in order to ensure that there'll be no further unnecessary delay. I summoned up my courage and asked about a few hours day release, to sort out a few things at home, but he wouldn't hear of it. 'You're not going anywhere' was the first thing he said, and then when I explained about living really close by and having someone who could supervise me, he said 'you've got tight coronary disease. Trust somebody else to sort things out.' So that's it. FInal word. I'm stuck in Beaumont until I'm sent over to the Mater.

INTERLUDE: The CAST
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Mr High-&-Mghty/Know-it-All (aka Niall (Neil)). Inconsiderate radio user. Suffers from a superior-than-thou attitude. Adept at rubbing people up the wrong way. Obsessed with asking people where they come from and attempting to show off what he considers his wide-ranging (but more often than not inaccurate) knowledge of foreign words and phrases. Very authoritarian and condescending individual -- 'Good girl' is his most frequent turn of phrase. Treats others as his personal slaves. First displayed his objectionable character by playing his radio too loud and refusing to use the earphones which came with it.
Barney (83, but doesn't look it). Hard of hearing. Big pot belly. Heavy smoker. Sometimes has to be put on a drip. He came out with a classic today while we were having tea. The talk was abut death and funerals and donating bodies to the College of Surgeons, and then Barney says: 'I know for a fact I'm going to Heaven.' How's that, Barney? 'Because I've been to Hell already.'
Leo (70 in October, but you'd never credit it). Suffering from some form of organ imbalance ir suchlike. At home his room is like a hospital setup anyway, with drips and machines that he hooks up to. He looks after self-medication mostly in the home environment, but things get out of kilter and he has to come into hospital at intervals to get sorted out. Swears by steroids as the best thing to sort him out, but finds doctors reluctant to prescribe them.
Jim II (age uncertain). Suffers from severe shortness of breath and liver problems. He's on a drip too, and the medical team seem to concentrate on sorting out his throughput of liquids.
John (aka Boris Karloff). The guy who constantly describes himself as having a short fuse. Rita the Foodlady's sworn enemy. Has strong opinions about lots and lots of things. Medical condition sounds similar to mine, though his chest pain is more concentrated in a single point rather than across his chest like me. There's just a possibility that he and I may move to the Mater in or around the same time.

Jim I (aka Mr Looper). James Connolly -- the man they named a hospital after. High-dependency patient, shouter, moaner, strong-willed, stubborn, master of irrelevant and confusing stories, attention seeker, world's most frequent toilet user (most often during hours of darkness), over-religious, panic-attack sufferer. Inveterate disturber of other patients' sleep.
Tom. In Barney's bed when I arrived on Friday. Curtains constantly closed. Only visitors' voices could ever be heard, which later turned out to be explained by the fact that he had apparently suffered a stroke and could speak at best in a whisper. His daughter had come over from Scotland and she and her brother spent hours on end by his bedside.

END INTERLUDE
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Lots of visits from friends and neighbours helped the time pass during the day, and then later on we had a bit of an emotional moment when Leo (in the bed across from mine) left us! He's been moved to a different ward, most probably to make way for another heart-related patient here. We'll all really miss him, not just for his dry sense of humour and his generally calming influence , but also because he's so knowledgeable about the hospital system from his many times coming in and out over the years. Let's hope we get somebody who'll fit in okay.

Tonight's offering in Jim's Kino was The Magnificent Seven, and I was half an hour into it when the new occupant for Leo's bed arrived, oldish, and very bad on his feet. He could barely struggle into bed even when he used Mr High-&-Mighty/Know-it-All's frame. Nada (the Indian nurse from way-back-when on my first night in the ward) came over after he'd made his slow, wary way to the toilet and asked me if I'd mind switching beds to make things easier for him. Naturally, I agreed, but I'd honestly prefer to stay where I am. We'll see what happens. Nadia says it may not prove necessary.